Even as more people are coming forward to register for bone marrow transplants, doctors maintain that the numbers are still not enough to meet the needs of leukemia and other blood cancer patients in the country.

In India 40,000 patients need bone marrow transplant on a given day. "Of the total blood cancer patients, one third will find a match in brothers or sisters but the rest will not get a match and hence a registry of unrelated donors is important. India needs at least 1,00,000 donors to make a strong database for match," said Dr Navin Khatri, secretary, Marrow Donor Registry (India), Tata Memorial Hospital.

At present, around 1,700 donors have registered with the Marrow Donor Registry (India) based in Tata Memorial Hospital. "In 2004, there were attempts to make marrow donor registry with funds from government. But it did not work out. In 2009, Marrow Donor Registry (India) was set up with the help of its counterpart in UK," said Dr Sunil Parekh, chairman, Marrow Donor Registry.

On World Cancer Day today, doctors will urge people to pledge as donors. "We have posted two short films of four minutes each on Youtube. The idea is to create awareness among youngsters," said Dr Parekh. "We also go to companies, colleges, social and religious organisations, clubs and distribute booklets and pamphlets," said Dr Neelam Nizara incharge of blood bank at Raheja Hospital.

There are around three ways to donate bone marrow. "The donor receives anesthesia. The doctors use hollow needles to withdraw liquid marrow. Donor might feel soreness in the lower back for a few days but the marrow will be completely replenished within four to six weeks," said Dr Parekh.

The second way is through peripheral blood stem cell donation. "This is to increase the number of blood-forming cells . Donor may experience side effects like headache or bone, muscle ache. The blood will be removed through a sterile needle," said Dr Parekh.

A new study has found that exercise may increase volume in hippocampus of the brain of schizophrenic patients.

The study has appeared in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Schizophrenia is associated with a reduced volume in the brain's hippocampus, which helps regulate emotion and memory.

The authors write: "In contrast to other illnesses that may display psychotic features, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia is often characterized by incomplete recovery of psychotic symptoms and persistent disability.

"These clinical features of illness may relate to an impairment of neural plasticity or mechanisms of reorganizing brain function in response to a challenge." Frank-Gerald Pajonk of The Saarland University Hospital, Homburg, and Dr. K. Fontheim's Hospital for Mental Health, Liebenburg, Germany, and colleagues examined changes in hippocampal volume in response to an exercise program in both male patients with schizophrenia and men who had similar demographics and physical characteristics but did not have the condition.

Eight participants with schizophrenia and eight controls were randomly assigned to exercise (supervised cycling) three times a week for 30 minutes, while an additional eight patients with schizophrenia played tabletop football for the same period of time. All participants underwent fitness testing, magnetic resonance imaging of the hippocampus, neuropsychological testing and other clinical measures before and after participating in the program for 12 weeks.

It was seen that following exercise training, hippocampal volume increased 12 percent in patients with schizophrenia and 16 percent in healthy controls. The authors said: "To provide a context, the magnitude of these changes in volume was similar to that observed for other subcortical structures when patients were switched from typical to atypical antipsychotic drug therapy." It was also seen that patients with schizophrenia who played tabletop football instead of exercising experienced a 1 percent decrease in hippocampal volume.

Aerobic fitness also increased among those who exercised, and improvement in test scores for short-term memory was linked to increases in hippocampal volume among patients and healthy controls.

India would soon swap with Sweden yoga and ayurveda for diagnostics and medical education.

"A road map would be collectively charted out in this regard very soon," said Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. Swedish Minister for Elderly Care and Public Health Maria Larsson was also present at the inauguration of Indo-Swedish health week in the capital on Monday.

Maria Larsson expressed hope that both the countries can benefit from each other's strengths in the area of public health and the size of her delegation bears a testimony to the interest that India has generated in her country.

Azad said that India is ready to partner in the field of geriatric care and mental health particularly for developing faculty and human resource to sustain our national programmes.

"While we are a young country, the absolute number of people who are above the age of 65 years is huge and growing very fast. This segment of the population requires specialised care which currently is provided from within the families. But with economic progress, large families are giving way to micro families leaving the elderly quite vulnerable to disease and distress," Azad added. He said, "India supports Sweden's view in controlling risk factors of alcohol that a global strategy has to be adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2010.

Azad also pointed out the Swedish Council of Working Life will conduct the Public Health Summer School in 2010-11. The school is an innovative concept to institutionalise exchange of ideas between young research scholars from India and Sweden. The Indo-Swedish health week, to commemorate the first anniversary of the signing of the MoU between the two countries, is being observed from February 1-5.